A class action lawsuit has been waged against Scopely Inc. by users claiming that the online video game company decreased the value of virtual goods purchased on the video game Star Trek Fleet Command (STFC).
Plaintiff Vernon Ackies says that he purchased virtual goods on the Star Trek video game and found out that Scopely decreased the value and the effectiveness of the goods after he bought them.
โSimply stated, Scopely took advantage of, and defrauded, its players through numerous unconscionable commercial practices and fraudulent acts to extract as much money as possible from them,โ the Star Trek video game class action lawsuit notes.
The plaintiff states that Star Trek Fleet Command is a multiplayer online game, or โMMO,โ which allows players to participate at the same time over the internet. STFC is free to play, but players can buy virtual goods with real money to enhance their abilities compared to other players on the game.
The Star Trek Fleet Command class action states that, for as high as $99.99 players can purchase โresources,โ โmaterials,โ โcharacter cards,โ โfaction credits,โ and โship blueprints.โ In addition, the plaintiff notes that game players can purchase โpacks,โ like โMaster Station Upgrade Packโ and โUltra Ship Power Pack,โ which encompass tokens which are used to upgrade a playerโs character, space station or space ship.
โMaking upgrades to a playerโs space station and space ship through the purchase of virtual goods is an important function in STFC. Without making these upgrades, which cost real money, competitive players are unable to advance far in STFC and are easily defeated by other players who have made such purchases and upgrades,โ the Scopely class action lawsuit states.
In addition, the plaintiff claims that the defendant represents the importance of upgrading a playerโs space station and space ship.
The Scopely class action lawsuit alleges that STFC misrepresents to players the cost of Star Trek Fleet Commandโs virtual goods. The plaintiff claims that STFC subtracted more in-game currencies from a playerโs balance than the stated cost prior to purchase.
The plaintiff also claims that players pay for virtual goods that had stated benefits and capabilities at the time of the purchase, but that the players did not get those benefits and capabilities that they paid for.
The Star Trek Fleet Command class action lawsuit also claims that in February 2019, after complaints from STFC players, Scopely released an โupdateโ to the game, which was supposed to fix parts of the software that was causing issues.
The plaintiff claims that these updates made changes to the โrulesโ of STFC, which had an effect on the โin-game economy and cost structure.โ
โThe February 2019 update, as well as a series of subsequent updates, substantially changed the rules of STFC and the in-game economy, effectively devaluing all prior purchases made by paying players,โ the Scopely class action lawsuit alleges.
The plaintiff also alleges that Scopely makes it hard for Star Trek Fleet Command players to file complaints and refuses to issue refunds to players who have lost purchased virtual goods bought with real-world money.
โRefunds are not issued even if the virtual good was lost through no fault of the playerโฆor if a virtual good does not operate as represented,โ the Scopely class action lawsuit states.
The plaintiff has filed this action under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, conversion, unjust enrichment, and legal fraud.
Did you purchase virtual goods while playing Star Trek Fleet Command? Leave a message in the comments section below.
The plaintiff is represented by Bob Kasolas and Mark E. Critchley of Brach Eichler LLC.
The Scopely Star Trek Fleet Command In Game Purchase Class Action Lawsuit is Ackies v. Scopely, Inc. Case No. 2:19-cv-19247, in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey.
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513 thoughts onStar Trek Fleet Command Players Lose Virtual Goods, Class Action Says
โScopely condones theft with the game mechanic. Players use real money to but virtual resources which they can be robbed of if they do not buy โpeace shieldsโ which routinely drop due to glitches. Good luck getting your RSS back if this happens. Bottom line, spend money to get resources then get extorted to buy protection so you dont get robbed.โ
Absolutley! Iโve never been involved with a more corrupt game that takes advantage of your misfortune due to their own mistakes via glitches then watch them tell you there is nothing they can do.
Signed,
Swallows
Iโve been playing since January 2019. Iโve spent almost $3000 on a mobile game. I feel this game takes advantage of addictive personalities. Thinking spending $100 on a package to upgrade a ship or station should do exactly that and it barely puts a dent into upgrades.
Scopely tailor fits each offer to the player. As you approach a certain level you will see offers for ship blue prints, upgrades etc. However when you look closer at the offer you discover the trap. For example I am currently being offered the Intrepid ship for $99.99 but the offer only includes 20 out of 120 blueprints. In order to actually build the ship it would cost $600.00 and the materials and resources offered with the pack are a certified joke
For all thses reasons I walked away after getting raped for all my rss after a glitch, froze the game and I was raised minutes after purchase,when I wrote.to scopely they blew me off saying itโs part of the game and I agreed to the mechanics when I installed the game, horseshit assholes took my money and cheatede out of the resources I bought, btw the individual had an [ADMIN] before his name in the info page. Go figure.
I should also mention that Scopely condones theft with the game mechanic. Players use real money to but virtual resources which they can be robbed of if they do not buy โpeace shieldsโ which routinely drop due to glitches. Good luck getting your RSS back if this happens. Bottom line, spend money to get resources then get extorted to buy protection so you dont get robbed.
Yes spent well over $450.00 on this game.
I am a hardcore trekkie and have been a player since month one. Probably $3000 in total and have now stopped spending unless a new ship is released. I am now level 33 and the requirement to progress and upgrade mandates purchasing thousands of dollars in vapor resources. I will be 33 for a very long time. The game is so glitch ridden I find myself reloading very 30 minutes. Would love a refund and walk away.
I should also mention that Scopely condones theft with the game mechanic. Players use real money to but virtual resources which they can be robbed of if they do not buy โpeace shieldsโ which routinely drop due to glitches. Good luck getting your RSS back if this happens. Bottom line, spend money to get resources then get extorted to buy protection so you dont get robbed.
Been playing a year as a very low spender. Think Iโm under 250 bucks spent in that year. 20 here, 20 there. I am level 27 now and my progress has pretty much stopped. I used to be able to level up through mining and events about once every week or 2. Now I go weeks without building or researching or upgrading ships because the uncommon materials now being asked for is so high. 200 for this building, 100 for this research, 250 to upgrade this ship part. The refinery might give me 30 in a weeks time. U can see why they prefer spenders to players. Itโs a pay to play game that you really dont find out until your investedโฆI heard some players have spent 100k. They have it all but wth are they thinking.
Scopely is really good at baiting players into spending cash in promised boosts that fail deliver or โnerfโ the base values before the boosts are applied and essentially make the boost useless. Best example, the Beyond expansion with the Franklin ship. Advertised to start at 25x damage against the swarm ships. What they donโt tell you is the base damage rate in 1/5 that of any other ship of the same power level. Then factor in the comparative math revealed in the battle logs and the ship is only doing 10x above the already nerfโd base damage rating. Add to that the disadvantage of the swarm ships power being boosted to points only seen on other npc ship 10+ levels higher. You have to spend at least $400 to make this ship useful for swarm and has no use for any other combat due to the initial 1/5 base damage handicap. Also look at the recent Dโvor miner. 12000% mining bonus on latinum mining. Only somewhat truthful as they set the base mining rate excessively low for that no other miner can effectively be used. Even as such the comparative mining rate only shows at best a 10000% boost after many upgrades. They also made it so that the only feasible way you can get, or upgrade, this ship is through cash purchase. Other examples, and hardly limited to, are new galaxy research primes for officers and refining that do 0-50% of advertised benefits and each requires a $99.99 purchase to accomplish. There is also the exceedingly limited ability to obtain uncommon and rare materials required In the thousands of units. Natural acquisition is typically impossible as the refinery regularly does not produce them, events rarely offer then and usually under 10 units awarded. Thatโs assuming the game even offers you the ones you need and not a ton of the materials you donโt. Add to it the loot boxes are stacked heavily with less important resources and very little of the uncommon and rare. Requiring you to buy many $99.99 packs for even the most basic performance upgrade on a ship or suffer weeks or months trying to save up through other methods. Then there are the bugs in the game that scopely makes players fall victim to and cost the resources you spent significant cash on. Their customer did-service always says the exact same things to everyone. We know there is a problem and working on it but we wonโt give you back what you lost because it would unbalance the economy. Even though it was their fault to begin with. Or they will say their internal logs disagree with what the player logs show or what the player themselves observed in real time and can prove with endless screen shots. Most of these bugs that cause things like player initiated shields to randomly drop early, 10 min automatic 1st hit shields that donโt deploy, players being able to attack even with a shield up, notifications/warnings that fail to work , plus many many more. They never compensate the players spending money on the game for their flaws. Yet, as seen recently, when a bug appears that works in favor of the players they have no issue with removing the benefits gained by the players under the same excuse of allowing players to keep those things would unbalance the economy. Such as the refinery bug they allowed players to refine repeatedly with out the typical, and pointless, cool down. Not only did they remove the refined materials without returning the unrefined supply, they actually declared many played as taking advantage of an obvious flaw and banned them from the game. The flaw was not obvious and many thought scopely finally got rid of the cool down limiter on refining as it is already limited by the time it take to mine. What is also amazing is that they fixed the issue immediately but bugs that work against players never get truly fixed. I could go on and on with the ripoffs and cash grabs, like the must pay to play Armadas rare targets at $20 per, but I think everyone who has never played this app get a pretty good idea what is happening here and those that have played have felt the pain first hand. Of note, scopely has recently added chance boxes that can only be reasonably obtained through resources bought with real cash. This has essentially added real gambling to the game as you spend real cash for an opportunity to randomly receive something very good or very worthless. Scopely didnโt learn from the walking dead game they were sued over for bogus chance boxes. But when the settlements are are far less than the profits, what motivation do they have to treat customers fairly. Especially when the payments get filtered through Apple or google and neither will, or rarely, refund the purchases despite the overwhelming evidence of flaws and fraud. They should be next to be slapped with a class action.
Even till this day they still ripping Oriole off. I spent more then 3k and didnโt get what I should. Shields go down even they shouldnโt. Ten minutes Shields go up half the time. And they wonโt give us resources back due to its a disruption to the economy of resources for the game.
the issue i have with having to buy things is the game doesnโt take into account real life issue.. you spend 99.99 and have a ton of RSS and then you have a emergency and the shield drops and someone goes and steals your stuff, which you paid money for and not by other means which didnโt cost you any money like mining and stealing it from other people.